Archives for March 15, 2019

ETH price broke a few important resistance levels near the $134 level against the US Dollar.The price gained traction and settled above the $134 and $136 resistance levels.This was a break above a few continuation patterns near $133 and $136 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).The pair is currently trading near the $139 resistance and it could continue to trade higher in the near term.Ethereum price is gaining bullish momentum against the US Dollar and bitcoin. ETH is likely to break the $139, $144 and $146 resistance levels to move into a positive zone.Ethereum Price AnalysisYesterday, we discussed that ETH price remains supported for more upsides towards the $135, $137 and $140 levels against the US Dollar. The ETH/USD pair formed a solid support near the $133 level and later started an upside move. It broke the $134 resistance and settled above the 100 hourly simple moving average. It opened the doors for more gains and the price traded above the $135 and $137 resistance levels.During the rise, there was a break above a few continuation patterns near $133 and $136 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair even broke the $138 resistance and tested the $139 hurdle. Recently, there was minor dip after the price tested the $139 resistance. It tested the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent leg from the $135 swing low to $139 high. However, the price remains well supported and downsides are likely to be contained by the $138 support.If there are more losses, the next key support could be $137. It coincides with the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent leg from the $135 swing low to $139 high. Any further losses may push the price back towards the main support at $134. On the upside, a break above the $139 resistance may push the price towards the $141 resistance levels. The current price action is very bullish and suggests that there are high chances of more gains above the $142 and $144 resistance levels.Looking at the chart, ETH price is trading with a positive bias above the $137 and $134 supports. In the short term, there could be a few range moves or dips towards $135. However, the overall structure is positive, calling for more gains above the $140 and $142 levels in the coming sessions.ETH Technical IndicatorsHourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is showing positive signs in the bullish zone.Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD is now placed well above the 60 level, with a strong bullish angle.Major Support Level – $137Major Resistance Level – $141

Bitcoin has been able to climb somewhat higher after finding relative levels of support in the low $3,900 region. Although its ability to maintain stability is certainly positive, BTC is getting closer and closer to the ever-so important $4,000 level, which could mean that significant volatility is on its way.Analysts are now expressing a somewhat cautiously bullish sentiment when it comes to the cryptocurrency, as it is showing some bullish signs, but must soon face an important hurdle at the $4,000 level.Bitcoin Stable Above $3,900, May Soon See Increased VolatilityAt the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading up roughly 1% at its current price of $3,960. BTC has been slowly creeping higher over the past several days and recovered the stability it recently lost after it climbed to $4,000 before swiftly dropping to $3,900 yesterday.Mati Greenspan, the senior market analyst at eToro, recently spoke to MarketWatch about Bitcoin’s current state, explaining that the cryptocurrency’s trading volume is higher than usual, but is down from its recent highs.“Bitcoin remains rather flat, still trying to break through the interim resistance at $4,000. The crypto rally may have lost some of its momentum, as volumes across exchanges do seem to be tapering off from their recent highs but remain elevated just under $30 billion per day,” he explained.Chonis Trading, a popular cryptocurrency analyst on Twitter, recently pointed out that Bitcoin has been able to close above the middle of two tightening Bollinger Bands, but refrained from making any predictions.“$BTC – another daily candle closed above the middle of a tightening BB… bitcoin dominance 51% and over $10Bill in daily volume which is higher than average.”$BTC – another daily candle closed above the middle of a tightening BB….#bitcoin dominance 51% and over $10Bill in daily volume which is higher than average🎱🎰🚦📈📉♋️ pic.twitter.com/dUWqTFjFwi— Chonis Trading (Crypto Mentor) (@BigChonis) March 15, 2019Analyst: Bulls Have a Growing Chance of Gaining Control After Recent Failed Sell SignalBecause Bitcoin has garnered some bullish momentum after experiencing the aforementioned volatility yesterday, one analyst believes that BTC’s bulls may have a change of gaining control over the crypto in the near future.Mr. Anderson, another popular cryptocurrency analyst on Twitter, discussed why the bulls may have a chance to push the crypto higher in a recent tweet, saying:“$BTC H1 – The best Buy signals are often failed sell signals. $BTC followed it’s best “Darth Maul” impression w/ Bullish action… H1 gave a cpl “momentum before price” signals. Stoch is in the go zone currently… Supply will dictate the move as always. But, Bulls have their chance.”$BTC H1The best Buy signals are often failed sell signals. $BTC followed it’s best “Darth Maul” impression w/ Bullish actionH1 gave a cpl “momentum before price” signals. Stoch is in the Go zone currentlySupply will dictate the move as always. But, Bulls have their chance pic.twitter.com/bc9agSeBm0— Mr. Anderson (@TrueCrypto28) March 15, 2019Traders and analysts alike are closely watching how Bitcoin responds to the upper-$3,900 region and the lower-$4,000 region, as these price levels have proven to be strong areas of resistance in the past and will likely continue to be unless bulls can muster up a significant amount of buying pressure in the near-future.Featured image from Shutterstock.

Justin Sun recently announced a $20 million giveaway. The full details of the airdrop haven’t been released yet, but he is definitively giving away a Tesla. This reporter’s been thinking about it: if a million people sign up for a $20 million giveaway, that’s $20 each. That’s actually a decent amount of cryptocurrency for nothing at all.

To celebrate #BTT & #USDT–#TRON success, I am planning a $20m free cash airdrop. Good news-it’s coming, bad news-I may decide to give away more! First, I will randomly pick 1 winner for a #Tesla up until 3/27! To apply, follow me and RT this tweet! Simple! #Blockchainpic.twitter.com/wFyzwtB3ur

No matter how you feel about Justin Sun or his creation, it’s undeniable that the explosive growth of the Tron ecosystem is a positive sign for the blockchain industry. A recent exchange with Charlie Lee illustrates the power that user-friendly, affordable tokenized platforms actually have. A woman had passingly heard of Charlie Lee’s Litecoin, speaking to the creator himself. But she knew all about Tron, and was eager to tell him about it.

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A Tron lady asked @SatoshiLite: do you know Tron? It’s always TOP-10. Charlie replied: do you know other TOP-10 coins? Not really. Litecoin? Tron lady: Yeah, I’ve heard of it. We kept laughing. She seemed very puzzled and asked: what’s so funny? pic.twitter.com/5gDdhVlfBn

Can users make use of $20 in TRX or BTT? Well, yes. You can make some investments, have some fun, or all of the above with that amount of TRX. Like most tokenized platforms, the base token is the most liquid. TRX is more widely used and accepted than any of the tokens running on it, however BTT is also accepted at most of the casinos.

TronLink: The MetaMask of Tron

There are multiple wallet options for Tron. For holding Tron, this reporter chose TronWatch. But for daily use, you need a browser-based plugin that allows you to interact with decentralized applications. A popular option for this, that works with TRX.market, Tronscan.org, and most other dapps, is TronLink.

Unfortunately, TronLink is only available for Chrome at this time. This is a drawback from Ethereum’s MetaMask, which is available for Firefox and Chrome.

Getting Tron

If you don’t want to wait for the airdrop from Justin Sun, you have the option of buying Tron now with other cryptos or stablecoins. Binance has a thriving TRX market and was the launchpad of the BitTorrent ICO. To acquire $20 worth of TRX via Dogecoin, this reporter used Changelly. The cost was 9300 Doge.

Using Doge to buy TRX on Changelly.

#1 Invest in a Casino

Another aspect of the casinos is their “token mining” aspect. It’s a cool feature of several TRX casinos: for every bet you place, you earn a small amount of a token. You can then stake that token or burn or it or sell it on a decentralized market.

One of the most valuable tokens in the TRX market is Ante, which is worth over 25 TRX on a normal basis. ANTE derives from TronBet.io, perhaps the most popular casino by volume. The more Ante tokens you control, the greater your share of the dividend. A popular model adopted by both Trontbet and TronDice is to return 70% of profits to the daily dividend pool. The dividends are paid via smart contract.

So, you can also buy Ante and Dice tokens, and stake them on the site, like so:

This is what dividends look like on TronDice. To earn a real amount of TRX, you need 10s of thousands of dice tokens. Dividends are paid out at midnight UTC every day.

The dividends may be small, but for this reporter, at least, something is better than nothing. The dividend varies by day. If we consider that we’re in a bear market for both interest and value in the crypto space, it’s probably a long-term decent investment. At any rate, it’s safer than actually gambling on the site. TronDice, which is pictured in the screenshot above, pays 2.5 dice tokens for every 10 Tron bet. Each token is worth roughly 1 100th of a TRX at this point, meaning you can purchase a 100,000 token stake in the casino for 1000 TRX, or roughly $3.

The dividends may be small, but they’re better than nothing. And the casinos make money. While many people win every day, plenty of people lose. That’s the nature of casinos. The cool thing about TRX casinos is that they don’t take more than each individual bet. The ones discussed in this article, at least – TronDice.org and TronBet.io – require you to sign each transaction. TronLink has a feature that allows you to automatically sign for a set period of time.

So, for an investment of $20, it seems you could make 25 to 50% in a few months time. And if you get that investment stake for free from Justin Sun’s airdrop, you’re making free crypto.

#2 Gamble

For the purpose of this article, the author converted about $20 worth of Dogecoin to TRX, and commenced to play on Tronbet. They have three game offerings now, but they will soon be launching live poker.

The most fun game is definitely Moon, a chart game which allows you to bet on the rising price of a fictional asset. Moons range from 1.00x (which is a loss for everyone who bets) all the way to 9900.

The minimum bet on both casinos is 10 TRX. If you bet 10 at 1.4x and you win, you get 4 extra TRX. You also get a small amount of Ante. The amount of Ante you receive is relational to your level. You get less per bet as your level increases. Eventually, all the Ante will be mined out, and the value will go up, as it is the only way to obtain a stake in the casino.

This reporter has seen it get as high as 300. Here’s a short recording of a game of Moon:

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There are a variety of other casinos out there. Another one this reporter tried was TronVegas. They use the same model as most Bitcoin-based casinos, where you make a deposit and then play. This is riskier than on-chain betting, of course, because you can’t know that your funds are safe. TronVegas also took the reporter’s money.

Casinos are one of the most popular dapps. For the purpose of this article, the author only really fully investigated two of them. But a full list of Tron casinos is available here.

#3 Play Games

Tron has a number of cool games running live on it. The most popular game is a massively multiplayer role playing game called TronLegend. The second most popular requires less time investment and is called TronGoo.

TronGoo has an in-game economy based on the production Goo. Players can fight, improve their kitties for fighting, and employ workers to earn Goo. Ownership of goo entitles you to TRX rewards. The game does require a bit of a learning curve, but fortunately they grant you a free intern kitty when you sign up.

TronGoo is good for people who aren’t necessarily interested in gambling. The basic premise is that you produce Goo and lock up Goo. In-game items can be purchased for TRX, part of which goes into the “research pot,” which is given back to users proportional to their goo production and holdings.

The coolest thing is that you can raise an army and steal Goo from other players.

This reporter successfully attacked another player and stole millions of goo.

Other Ways You Can Use $20 In Tron

You can, of course, play the token’s market. $20 gets you about 800 TRX at current prices. If you take that an invest in dice tokens, for instance, you can get about 80,000 of them. Then you can sell them at a higher price as the market fluctuates. You can invest in BTT, Ante, and other tokens as well, all by virtue of having a TronLink wallet and access Trx.market.

You can of course just speculate on Tron’s eventual return to market highs. Simply hodling tokens works in Tron as well, but the point of this article is that the nascent system has exploded with dapps. You don’t have to be a Tron bull or fanatic to have a lot of fun there.

After you use Tron for awhile, you’ll understand why it has such a high volume of transactions. Every bet on TronBet is a transaction, as well as TronDice and many other places. The blockchain is handling this volume of transactions and interest seems to be on a quick trajectory. It’s hard not to get excited about Tron after using it for awhile.

One thing that bears mentioning: to transact on Tron, you need bandwidth. Everyone gets a small amount for free, but if you freeze your TRX at Tronscan (on the wallet tab), you can get more proportional to how much you freeze. This will save you TRX in transaction costs.

Bitcoin remains in its tightly coiled range as the market continues its sideways trend for the third week in a row. While macro support has been tested three times recently, we have yet to test the overhanging macro resistance:

Figure 1: BTC-USD, Daily Candles, Narrow Range

The blue zone outlined above shows a very strong zone of support that, over the last few weeks, has seen three strong tests and has led to a slowly upward-drifting market consolidation. Since re-establishing support, the market has yet to see a meaningful retest of the overhead resistance outlined above in the red dashed and solid lines. The immediate resistance sitting overhead has, historically, been a highly volatile period where supply has manifested and stifled any bullish pressure:

Figure 2: BTC-USD, Daily Candles, Three Rejections

The black level outlined above represents the preliminary level that the market had tested prior to shoving to the red macro resistance levels. In Figure 2, we can see three clear tests followed immediately by three rejections. And now, after finding support on a major, macro level (the blue zone), we seem to be meandering upward into the immediate overhead black resistance.

This current move is considerably different from the prior moves. The three prior tests occurred very violently and were matched with overwhelmingly violent selling responses. Our fourth test, however, has been a slow, persistent grind. Upward drifts like this are often signs of weakening supply and, consequently, a weakening resistance level.

While it is still early to tell and we have yet to actually establish support on this level, the early signs of bearish exhaustion are starting to surface as we make our way upward. If we manage to test and find support on the black level, it seems logical that the next step would be to test the level in the low $4,000s that has been rejected so many times previously.

Because we are stuck in the middle of a range, the market is pseudo-agnostic in terms of its market bias. It’s a bit of a no-man’s-land, so to speak. If we do see a rejection of our overhead level, we can fully expect a retest of the macro, blue support zone shown above. A failure to hold the blue zone would undoubtedly yield a test of our macro lows in the low $3,000s.

We need to see a bullish close either above our current resistance or below our current macro support before any meaningful market movement is realized. Until then, it is just chop-city as we ping-pong back and forth between the upper and lower boundaries of our range.

Summary:

Bitcoin has continued to consolidate within its narrow range.

The consolidation has an upward tilt to it that is causing us to slowly grind through a macro resistance level that has seen three strong rejections over the last three months.

If we fail to break the overhead resistance and find support, we can expect a macro retest of the support level in the mid $3,000s. However, if we break out and find support, we can expect to see, at minimum, a retest of the low $4,000 area.

Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Inc related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Inc and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Valerie Szczepanik is optimistic that regulation will ultimately boost the cryptocurrency market.

“I do think if we hope to smell the crypto spring in the air, it will take people walking with the regulators,” Szczepanik, the SEC’s senior advisor for digital assets, told a crowd Friday at SXSW in Austin, Texas. “But I do think the spring is going to come.”

In a Q&A session with attorney Daniel Kahan of Morrison & Foerster LLP, Szczepanik emphasized how the regulatory approach at the SEC is designed to let innovation flourish, though it comes at the cost of not providing completely clear guidelines for new kinds of businesses.

“The lack of bright-line rules allows regulators to be more flexible,” she said.

While respecting the desire from entrepreneurs to know whether they can or can’t run a business in full compliance with current securities laws, she said the principles-based approach allows more opportunities to arise from new technology.

She told attendees:

“I think if you were to propose a new regime of regulations in a precipitous way without really studying it, you might end up steering the technology one way or another.”

When asked for her thoughts on the rise of stablecoins, Szczepanik noted that there as several arrangements that allow these tokens to maintain a relatively stable price relative to other assets.

She singled out stablecoins that create two assets – one that maintains a fixed price and the other whose value fluctuates in order to help the first token’s price stay fixed (often referred to as algorithmic stablecoins).

With regard to that particular category of project, she said, “You might be getting into the land of security.”

“Folks like to put labels on things,” Szczepanik said of stablecoins, “but we’ll always look behind the label to see exactly what’s happening. We’ll give it the label it deserves under the law.”

Appropriate penalties

A topic that she returned to multiple times during the 90-minute talk was the SEC’s FinHub, where companies can come in and talk with staff about approaches they are taking. Kahan offered a rule of thumb: “It’s always better to find your regulators than to let your regulators find you.

Szczepanik emphasized that dialogue with the SEC yields better outcomes for companies. In particular, she highlighted recent regulatory action against Gladius, a cybersecurity company defending against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Its settlement was announced in February.

As the agency acknowledged in that settlement, it did not impose a penalty on Gladius because the firm self-reported and communicated with regulators throughout the investigation.

That said, rather than focus entirely on regulatory action against companies, Szczepanik also argued that businesses can do better by working with regulators from the start.

She acknowledged that some companies will go offshore in search of more lenient regulatory regimes, but she said the real opportunity is with companies that abide by the stronger U.S. rules. “There are benefits to doing it the right way. And when they do that they will be the gold standard,” she contended.

Beyond the U.S., Szczepanik said regulators around the world are in regular contact about distributed ledger technology. “I think there’s a lot of excitement around the globe about how DLT can be deployed to increase efficiency,” she said.

No-action letters

One form of relief that entrepreneurs have been seeking since the earliest days of the initial coin offering boom have been no-action letters. That is, letters from the SEC that acknowledge a review of a companies business process and affirm that the SEC will not take regulatory action against it.

Szczepanik has emphasized these before. However, attorneys in the space have noted that thus far no no-action letters have been issued.

Regardless, Sczczepanik’s fundamental message was that companies will have better outcomes if they interact with securities regulators. To that end, she is going on the road now to give more entrepreneurs the opportunity to reach her.

She concluded:

“We’d much rather have people come and ask us before they do something rather than coming and asking for forgiveness.”

Ever since Bitcoin and the entire crypto markets went spiraling downwards in late-2017 and early-2018, investor’s sentiment has grown to be strongly linked to price action, and as such, the sentiment of most neophyte investors that have been burned by the persisting bear market remains in the gutter.Despite this, the sheer amount of hype and excitement surrounding the nascent markets and technologies at the on-going South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, may be a signal that excitement for the markets is still flowing through the veins of investors, regardless of how well various cryptocurrencies are trading.Winklevoss Twins: Interest in Crypto is at a Tipping PointCameron and Tyler Winklevoss – the founders of the popular cryptocurrency exchange Gemini – have sat at the forefront of all noteworthy crypto-related discussions at the SXSW conference, and recently discussed the notable revelations stemming from the revered and highly publicized conference.One of the many interesting sections of the Medium post written by the twins is titled “Interest is at a tipping point,” and explains how the packed house, combined with the level of audience engagement, signals that investors are still incredibly engaged with the technologies and the industry as a whole, regardless of whether or not the markets are offering them colossal returns.“Look no further than the packed house we saw from the stage —the energy and excitement around crypto’s future was palpable — money has a future. Perhaps more importantly, the level of engagement and thoughtful questions posed by the audience on topics such as stablecoins, mining, financial disruption, scalability, and others, demonstrates that cryptocurrency is in fact no longer a fringe technology,” they explained.Because the technology’s user base is growing by leaps and bounds, it does seem as though the markets may be seeing the first glimpse of true maturity, which is typically found in markets that have constant, stable growth, paired with an enthusiastic user-base.Will the Crypto Winter Lead to Increased Innovation?There is a widely held belief that bear markets are actually the best market conditions to grow a business in, as it requires companies and projects to buckle down and focus on innovation, rather than simply chasing dollars at the cost of innovation.The twins elaborated on this sentiment in the blog post, explaining that the quality of projects being developed has never been higher.“In times like 2017, when mania overshadows discipline, everything seems like a good idea. Today, the quality of projects and entrepreneurs pursuing them has never been higher. We are all forced to make thoughtful decisions and trade-offs, which we believe will ultimately lead to better results for our industry as a whole,” the Winklevoss brothers bullishly noted.As the industry continues to grow, and projects – like Gemini – continue to improve the ecosystem, it is likely that the markets will eventually follow suit and catch up to the industry’s developments.Featured image from Shutterstock.

Former IMF economist Mark Dow enshrined his name in derivatives trading lore when he famously shorted the bitcoin price from its December 2017 peak near $20,000 all the way down to its trough below $3,500 a year later. Now, the legendary crypto short seller is gloating as the first exchange to list bitcoin futures delists the flagship cryptocurrency, perhaps for good.

Writing on Twitter, Dow joked that he caused the market’s liquidity to dry up when he closed out his epic short position.

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“I guess this is what happened when I stopped trading it,” he wrote. “Thanks for the memories! $XBT R.I.P.”

On March 14, CCN reported that CBOE had suspended the addition of new XBT futures contracts. In its announcement, CBOE said that it chose to axe bitcoin futures while it reassesses its support for crypto products.

“CFE is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019.CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading. Currently listed XBT futures contracts remain available for trading.”

All joking aside, since I had to roll my #bitcoin exposure each month last year, I saw that the liquidity got worse every time. Hard to buy the story about broadening institutional adoption when you see this. $BTC$XBThttps://t.co/3gXFjwl5qc

Dow said that he was not surprised to see CBOE close its bitcoin futures market. Contravening the industry narrative that institutional investors are steadily moving capital into cryptocurrency, Dow said that liquidity in the institutional-focused futures markets got worse every month.

“All joking aside, since I had to roll my #bitcoin exposure each month last year, I saw that the liquidity got worse every time. Hard to buy the story about broadening institutional adoption when you see this.”

CME Sees Record Bitcoin Futures Growth in 2019

Of course, it’s important to put CBOE’s announcement in perspective. CBOE’s bitcoin futures volumes were always far smaller than those of rival CME, the only other US exchange to currently offer crypto futures.

CME reported steady growth in this market throughout 2018, with average daily volume increasing by 119% between Q1 and Q4. Last month, the exchange recorded a record in the amount of BTC futures contracts traded within a single day, as over 18,000 contracts representing a total of 90,000 BTC (~$350 million) changed hands.

CBOE’s Exit a Stunning Reversal for the Crypto-Curious Exchange

Still, CBOE made history in 2017 when it became the first US derivatives exchange to list bitcoin futures. At the time, many cryptocurrency bulls predicted that it would usher in a wave of new investment in the nascent asset class and launch the market to new highs.

Instead, according to analysts at the Federal Reserve, the launch of BTC futures on CBOE and fellow Chicago exchange CME triggered the historic cryptocurrency bubble crash, enabling bears like Mark Dow to make a fortune shorting the bitcoin price as it cratered by more than 80 percent.

Mark Dow shorted the bitcoin price from top to near-bottom, and the Federal Reserve blamed traders like him for the market’s rapid collapse. | Source: Yahoo Finance

While CBOE did not explicitly state that it had permanently halted support for bitcoin, many believe the writing is on the wall, at least in the near-term. In any case, it’s a stunning reversal, given that the exchange raced to become the first to support bitcoin and once boasted that it hoped to launch an entire suite of cryptocurrency products.

Again, those products – including the bitcoin ETF that CBOE has sought to list – could still come down the road, but in this market climate it’s difficult to imagine CBOE taking a chance on another institutional crypto derivative when it failed to build sufficient liquidity in a market as basic as a standard bitcoin futures contract.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) announced that it will not list upcoming Cboe Bitcoin (“XBT”) futures contracts for trading in March 2019.

The Cboe Futures Exchange said that the company is “assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading,” stating that it has no intention to list additional contracts for trading relating to the cryptocurrency.

Though it is not confirmed, the reason behind Cboe’s futures closing might be due to its underperformance in comparison to CME’s futures contracts.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange first listed its Bitcoin futures on December 10, 2017, preceding the listing of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s futures on December 17 of the same year. The two contracts went live shortly before the price of bitcoin began to dip from its all-time high of over $19,000.

After listing its Bitcoin futures, Cboe filed multipletimes with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the approval of several Bitcoin ETFs, none of which have been approved.

Critics of the Cboe futures, which were cash-settled contracts (no physical delivery of bitcoin), claimed that the financial activity that these types of contracts created had a negative impact on Bitcoin because they did not involve the movement and transfer of physical bitcoins on-chain, therefore suppressing its price.

“They are both cash settled, meaning that two players trade against each other based on the price, and the loser forks over USD to the winner, so bitcoin is never moved by this market,” said Greenspan

Blockchain interoperability project Tendermint has raised $9 million in a Series A funding round led by technology-focused venture capital firm Paradigm.

Announcing the news on Thursday, Tendermint said that other participants in the round included Bain Capital and 1confirmation, among others. The investment will go toward supporting the firm’s continued development of the Cosmos Network, expanding its team and making its business model “sustainable.”

Just a day before the funding was announced, Tendermint launched Cosmos Hub, a blockchain designed to improve interoperability between any number of other blockchains, after nearly three years of planning and development. Cosmos Hub is the firm’s first in a series of proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains.

“Blockchain technology is an incredible innovation that has unfortunately been hamstrung by a series of limitations, including scalability problems, a lack of usability and myriad governance and environmental issues,” Jae Kwon, CEO of Tendermint and contributor of Cosmos, said in Thursday’s announcement.

He added:

“The vision of Cosmos is to overcome these limitations and break down barriers to innovation, ultimately creating an Internet of Blockchains: a decentralized network of independent, scalable, and interoperable blockchains.”

Tendermint first revealed its plans to launch a public blockchain platform as far back as 2014 through its white paper.

The project has recently released a couple of other developer-focused products, such as software development kit, or SDK, (being used by cryptocurrency exchange Binance) and Tendermint Core, which is the blockchain networking and consensus mechanism underlying the Cosmos Hub.

According to reports in UK news publication Northampton Chronicle, a Bitcoin ATM located in a grocery store has been targeted in the Northampton area by thieves in a brazen robbery. A group of three individuals are wanted in relation to the offence.During the incident, one of the trio threatened a shop keeper with a machete, whilst another smashed the Bitcoin ATM from the wall with a sledgehammer. The authorities are still to disclose the financial value of the robbery.UK: Armed Robbers Make Off With Bitcoin ATMThe Bitcoin ATM robbery allegedly took place at around 20:30 on the evening of Tuesday, March 12. The local police constabulary did not report the incident until earlier today, however.According to statements from the authorities, three individuals arrived at a branch of a Costcutter convenience store on the evening in question. One of the trio waited outside, whilst the other two entered the premises. Wielding a curved machete, one of the pair threatened the shop assistant. Meanwhile, the second used a sledgehammer to forcibly dislodge the shop’s Bitcoin ATM from the wall.Seemingly only interested in the exchange terminal, the three swiftly left the scene with the unit. They are reported to have fled down Haines Road and then Euston Road.According to a spokesperson for the local police force:“All the men wore face coverings and gloves. The one with the machete is described as wearing a black balaclava, black puffer parka jacket, blue jogging bottoms and light coloured trainers. The man with the sledgehammer wore a black balaclava, grey/green puffer style parka jacket, black jogging bottoms and black trainers. The third man wore a grey puffer style parka jacket and had a grey face covering.”Police are currently appealing for any witnesses or individuals with knowledge of the Bitcoin ATM robbery incident to contact them with any information. They can contact the Northampton Police on its non-emergency line, +101.No Bitcoin Stored in this Machine Overnight…As mentioned, there is no indication as to how much the trio of robbers made off with. However, based on knowledge of the current UK cryptocurrency market, it cannot have been a great deal. Earlier this month, NewsBTC reported on a survey of UK consumers’ knowledge of digital assets. The results showed that just three percent of those asked had ever invested in crypto and of that number, only around half had ever spent more than £200 on digital assets.These findings, coupled with the huge commissions often charged by Bitcoin ATMs that discourage their use, suggest that the reported robbery of the Bitcoin ATM might not have been as profitable as the trio initially expected. Evidently, those involved in the incident did not act with the same level of sophistication as the recently reported Calgary criminal gang who targeted Bitcoin ATMs during 2018 to the tune of $145,000.Perhaps the Northampton robbers were labouring under the same misguided pretences as those who supposedly attacked the Bitcoin ATM in the Tweet below…😂 When technology is ahead of burglars. 😅 Someone stole a Bitcoin ATM and tried to pull coins from there. Bitcoin is the safest method of transaction#entrepreneur#payoutday#vancover#london#bitcointrader#bitcoin#ATM#bitcoinnews#bitcoininfo#bitcoin#traders#traderpic.twitter.com/OPJUiIQNUI— Alexander .F. Peterson (@Alexand23230564) March 13, 2019Related Reading:Are Bitcoin ATMs Driving Adoption, Criminality, or Consumerism?Featured Image from Shutterstock.